


A Christmas Wish

by returntosaturn



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 06:14:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5323607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Emma meets Mary Margaret and David in her group home one Christmas when they volunteer. AU, non-magic. Just family Christmas fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Christmas Wish

She peeks her head around the kid in front of her in line, gazing up at the big fat man in the red suit she knows is a fake. Because even at six, she’s particularly good at pointing out fakes. His beard is too wiry and perfectly coifed. His red hat looks like it’s been stuffed in the closet far too long, a suspicion confirmed when it is her turn to boost herself onto his lap. He smells like medicine, and his beard is itchy when it tickles her temple.

She has been listening to the other kids recite their wishes for Santa: dolls, and monster trucks, and Walkmans. But all of those things seem unnecessary to her. 

She didn’t care about toys. Her wish was different. 

She knows the toys they will get this afternoon are donated, already used by other kids, wrapped in shoeboxes to make it sound cutesy for the volunteers. But really it just sounds sad. Who wants a gift out of an old shoebox? They’ll all end up fighting over the toys in the end, or being forced to leave them behind when they move from home to home. 

She appreciates the effort at least, that the house parents and the other workers have put this on for them. It’s the closest the kids will have to a normal Christmas, but to Emma it seems too busy. Too many adults running around and trying to make sure everything is perfect, trying to tend to volunteers and watch out for the kids in the midst of it all. They’re in the dining room that is already crowded with half this many people on a normal day. Stations are set up around the room, manned by a handful of unfamiliar volunteers. There’s cookie decorating, and tree trimming. In the corner, a teacher reads The Night Before Christmas to the younger children.

A teacher taps her shoulder, indicating she should hurry up. (The other kids are getting impatient). She jumps, suddenly daunted.

She fidgets, deciding on whether or not to tell this smelly man what it was she really wants—has wanted for all the Christmases she can remember. If he could possibly, maybe possibly pass it on… If there was a Santa at all…

She leans up to his ear, covering her mouth. She is smart enough to know that wishes don’t come true if everybody hears, and her house parent is lingering close by, fighting with a younger kid who’s already breaking into the treat bags.

“A real mommy and a real daddy,” she says, whispering the words like the prayers they say at bedtime and meals. 

And when she pulls away, the fake Santa looks shocked, wide eyed and opened mouthed. But he’s quick, and she thinks maybe there’s a school where you’re supposed to learn how to be like Santa, how to pretend. He smiles and pats her shoulder.

“Alright, sweetheart. I’ll see what I can do,” he says, helping her to her feet, and at the last minute, she watches his tired eyes grow glassy with tears.

She continues through the room, sitting at one of the little plastic chairs at the table where other kids are decorating ornaments. She chooses a pretty wooden cut of a snowflake, and begins adding glue to each side.

The chair next to hers scoots out, but whoever has sat is certainly not a kid. She looks up at a man, with a nametag stuck to his shirt, indicating he is one of the volunteers. He has dark blonde hair, and blue eyes that seem to smile.

“That’s a pretty snowflake,” he says, pointing.

At first, she wants to scoot away. She is used to strange people trying to talk with her, trying to get to know her. She is, for a six year old, too used to those people picking another kid. She doesn’t know why they always do…

“Thank you,” she says politely instead, reaching for the silver glitter.

“I’m Mr. Nolan,” he says, pulling a cut out of a snowman towards him, starting to decorate with her.

“I’m Emma,” she offers resignedly, patting the glitter gently around the middle of the snowflake.

“That’s a pretty name. Oh…” 

She glances up, and a lady is standing next to them now, holding Mr. Nolan’s hand. The prettiest lady in the whole room, probably. She has short black hair, and a pretty red and green plaid dress.

“Emma, this is my wife, Mrs. Nolan,” the man says, giving the lady’s hand a squeeze. 

Emma smiles. The lady perches between them, asking Emma if she can help. They finish dousing one side of the snowflake in glitter, and Emma declares it has to dry before they can finish the other side.

“What are some things you like to do, Emma?” Mrs. Nolan asks, coloring in the fur of her own reindeer ornament.

“I’m read really good!” she declares proudly. “I like Junie B. Jones.”

Mrs. Nolan laughs happily. “I like her too. Have you read any fairytales? Those are my favorites.”

Emma nods, shy again. Most of the kids have been sent outside now. They have been talking quite awhile. Longer than Emma remembers anyone else talking to her like this. She thinks a lot about what the people who adopt her will be like. She thinks they’ll have nice smiles, and she hopes they’re half as nice as the Nolans’ smiles. 

“Who’s your favorite princess?” Mrs. Nolan asks.

“Cinderella,” she tells her. “Because she has the prettiest dress.”

Mr. Nolan laughs now. “I think you look just like her.” 

Mrs. Nolan lets Emma glue a red puff ball to the nose of her reindeer, even though they have all decided it looks suspiciously more like Bambi than Rudolph by the spots Mrs. Nolan has colored on its back. 

Dinner comes, and most of the volunteers have gone home. But the Nolans stay. She notices its snowing outside, and runs for the window, trying to get a peek from behind the taller kids. But Mr. Nolan scoops her up, setting her on his shoulder so she can watch the sparkly, crystal blanket begin forming on the tiny playground. Too soon, it is time to leave. A house parent waits, intending to hustle Emma to her bed as soon as Mrs. Nolan has finished hugging her, and Emma cannot remember ever feeling so warm. 

-O-O-O-

They decide on the car ride home. In all truth, they had decided three minutes after meeting her. David knew she was theirs the moment he set eyes on her. Something pulled him to her. Something in Mary Margaret’s smile, in the way she stroked the little girl’s pigtails, told him this was it. When they call the facility the next day, they ask if it would be appropriate to have her for Christmas dinner at their house. At first, the housemistress is wary, and asks if there will be other family there. Finally, after being assured that it would only be them, that it would be a quiet dinner with just a few presents, she agrees. She promises to tell Emma, and when they pick her up Christmas morning, she’s beaming in an emerald colored dress and Mary Janes, and her mismatched hand-me-down coat.

She gets two presents—he suspects she has never had two presents—and Mary Margaret squeezes his hand at how bright her smile is as she takes the silver and green boxes, watching for a few moments at how the Christmas tree lights reflect off the wrapping. There is a Cinderella doll—that he had picked out himself—and a small red jacket that is nearly identical to Mary Margaret’s pea coat.

They have their hot chocolate and cinnamon, a tradition they started the year they were married. They play Sorry and Hungry, Hungry Hippos, and he catches Mary Margret’s dreamy grin from the sofa as she watches them battle it out. 

When they drive her home, she falls asleep in the backseat, buttoned up in her coat, and her doll tucked under her chin. He hates to wake her up when they get back to the group home. In fact, he hates to leave her here at all. But the way she hugs onto Mary Margaret’s waist, and the way his wife drops a kiss onto the crown of her golden hair seals the evening with a promise.

 

Emma is seven now. She’s asked for a bicycle and a soccer ball this Christmas. Sometimes, Mary Margaret cannot believe how much she’s grown since they brought her home. How much personality has blossomed from her this year. She isn’t the quiet, tentative girl they brought home last year. Now, she can barely keep her inside. She likes to run and play, and if she’s feeling affectionate—which is, thankfully, more often than not—she gardens with her mother. They had planted a cluster of snowbells, and daisies that Emma had chosen herself. But they are covered now, in Boston’s first snowstorm of the year.

She watches from the front window as she and David build a snowman, Emma packing the smallest ball together with mittened hands. They lift it up onto the body, and David packs it down. Emma pokes in two sticks for arms and two buttons for eyes that Mary Margret wrangled up from her sewing kit. Their laughter echoes through the foyer when they come inside.

“Mommy!” Emma calls, running straight for her, burying her face into her belly.

“Its cooooollllddd out there.” She shivers, and Mary Margret laughs when she reaches up to press her cold fingers against her cheeks.

Later, when they’ve all got on matching Christmas socks, and sit by the tree to drink their cocoa, Mary Margret watches the Christmas lights glint off the glittery snowflake that hangs next to the paper reindeer and snowman ornaments they made last year. David swipes a finger across Emma’s cheek, leaving a streak of whipped cream, and she throws her head back in laughter, shimmying down to cuddle between them. David leans over her to kiss his wife’s cheek. Mary Margaret can think of nothing she would need, nothing she would wish, except to have this. For as long as she can. Her family, that beyond all doubts and costs, has found each other.


End file.
